


When the pain fades

by OptimalShip



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Comforting, Dragon Age Spoilers, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-All That Remains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 23:49:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3997834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OptimalShip/pseuds/OptimalShip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She realizes that every single time someone has been lost in the Hawke family, they’ve always leaned on each other for comfort and support. Hawke never found herself alone and cold, because someone was always with her. She’s never been alone.</p><p>“I know nothing I say will change it,” Anders’s voice echoes around them in the still room, and Hawke turns her head slightly to look at him. His expression is cautious and somber, his lips turned downwards. He’s approaching her as if he would a wounded patient. “I’m just...I’m sorry.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the pain fades

**Author's Note:**

> My first work in the DA fandom! 
> 
> I was overwhelmed with feels during All That Remains, and was suddenly woken up in the middle of the night-one am to be exact-by the need to write a quick one shot for it.
> 
> This was written about the aftermath of ATR, about my character, May Hawke, and how she felt about it. Could also imagine it as your own Hawke, because I refrained from mentioning mine's first name.
> 
> (gosh i hope i didn't butcher varric this is my first time attempting to write him)
> 
> If you enjoyed this, let me know! I always love hearing feedback from you guys, it seriously makes my day.
> 
> If you'd ever like to ask me things about my DA characters-like May-or talk to me about them or the game, my tumblr is justgonnaawkwardlywalkaway and the page for my characters is justgonnaawkwardlywalkaway.tumblr.com/dragonagecharacters :)

     Hawke doesn’t know how long she’s been sitting in her room. Her back aches, her eyes sting, and locks of hair are falling into her eyes. She blinks a few times but doesn’t move to brush the hair away.

     She can’t hear anything, the house is as silent as a tomb. Or maybe she just isn’t listening, as if her ears are tuned out to every noise except for the last thing from her mother’s lips being replayed over and over in her mind.

      _My little girl has become so strong. I love you. You’ve always made me so proud._

 _You’ve always made me_ so _proud._

     She wants to scream, to bury her face in her hands and sob, but she can’t. It’s as if she’s frozen, a block of ice, and she doesn’t know how to thaw herself out. She doesn’t know who she’s more mad at; the man who killed her mother, or herself for not being fast enough.

     She blinks a few times, her eyes burning with moisture. She was never fast enough, never quite quick enough to save her family. Not for Bethany when she rushed to the ogre, not to Carver as he was poisoned by a darkspawn, and, now, not for her mother.

     She tries to remember how she got through the other times of grief in her family. When her father died, the whole Hawke family grieved him together. It was a slow process, hard to come to terms with. Hawke can’t count all the times she woke up to find her mother crying at their kitchen table.

     When Bethany died, after they got over the shock and settled down, Leandra, Carver, and Hawke leaned on each other for support, a subtle grieving but a burden they all shared. The loss of Bethany sparked countless sleepless nights where they’d find each other in Gamlen’s tiny living room, staring into the flames. No words were ever spoken, but they knew.

     When Carver was taken in by the Grey Wardens, Hawke and her mother shouldered the pain by reminding themselves that he was not dead. It didn’t stop either of them from crying throughout the night, or constantly checking the mail to see if something new had arrived from him. Hawke had never thought losing her little brother would be so hard, but her heart still aches every single day with his loss, as it still does for Bethany’s as well.

     She realizes that every single time someone has been lost in the Hawke family, they’ve always leaned on each other for comfort and support. Hawke never found herself alone and cold, because someone was always with her. She’s never been alone.

     Hawke has never felt so alone. Her entire being _aches_ with the loneliness.

     She hears her door open, and it sounds incredibly loud in the silence that surrounds her. She doesn’t look up, though, because she knows who it is. She’s grown accustomed to the sound of his feet on the ground, the hesitant way he approaches her when he is unsure of what to do. She doesn't blame him; she doesn't even know how to act towards herself, except with anger and hate.  
  
     “I know nothing I say will change it,” Anders’s voice echoes around them in the still room, and Hawke turns her head slightly to look at him. His expression is cautious and somber, his lips turned downwards. He’s approaching her as if he would a wounded patient. “I’m just...I’m sorry.”

     Hawke turns away again, looking to her right and at the wall, studying the patterns intently. She knows he is standing in front of her, can feel his stare on the side of her face, but she can’t bear to look at him. She doesn’t want him to see the weakness in the tremble of her lip or the tears in her eyes and have him think she is fragile. She is _not_ fragile.  
  
      _My little girl has become so strong._

     She clenches her teeth against the words that sound like shouts in her mind.

     “You were lucky to have her as long as you did.” He says after a moment. “When the pain fades, that’s what will matter.”

     She looks down at his shoes, staring at them as if they were the most interesting thing in the room. He speaks as if he knows, and maybe he does, but she can’t find it in her to say anything about it. It isn’t the words she wants to hear, exactly. If she were being honest, she would’ve preferred something more not direct, something that isn’t about her grief and pain. She doesn’t want comfort, because she can handle this alone. She feels like she needs to show him that she can, because she’s always been strong in his eyes.

     Her reply is distantly polite. “I appreciate it, Anders.”

     She feels the dip in the bed as he sits down, can feel the warmth that always surrounds him warming her side. It’s the first thing that hasn’t felt like ice all day. She yearns to lean into him so she doesn’t have to hold herself up because that’s starting to feel like the most difficult thing she’s ever done.

     “I’m here for you.” He says softly. “Whatever you need.”

     Only then does she turn and look at him, and she can feel the tears in her eyes that he must be seeing now. He’s looking at her with amber eyes as soft and sad as his voice, his hand resting firmly between them, as if he isn’t sure whether or not touching her would be alright. She isn’t sure either; she feels that if he did touch her, she’d fall to pieces right then and there.  
  
     They don’t say anything for a long time, just stare at each other. She longs desperately to reach out for him and tell him how terrible she is. Her mother had said she was proud, but, at this moment, Hawke can’t think of a single reason why her mother would say that. She let Bethany die. She let Carver be hurt when she promised to protect him. She had let her mother down _so many_ times.  
  
     She knows Anders was there during her mother’s final moments, had heard what Leandra had said, because she can dimly remember how he was the one to guide her out and home. His hand had been warm on her elbow, his body close, and the silence between them heavy. She’d requested to be alone for a moment when they’d come to her front door, the first thing she’d said to him for the whole duration of the walk back to the Hawke estate.

     He had nodded and left, probably trying to give her some grieving time alone with her uncle-who had turned out to be no help. His grief only added to her own. She knows now that those bits of absence only made her wish he had been there even more. They aren’t even touching, but just his presence is enough to make her not feel like she’s frozen.

    _I’m here for you_. And it’s exactly what she needed him to say. The sudden onslaught of feelings overwhelms her for a moment as it dawns on her that she is not completely alone. She has known Anders for almost four years now, and she knows that he has seen her at her best, and he will still be there in this moment, at her worst.

    _Whatever you need_. She needs _him_ , now more than ever.  
  
     She’s the first one to break their staring so she can lean forward into him. His movement is automatic, arms coming up to encircle her and pull her to his chest. She presses her face there, feeling the texture of his clothes and the tickle of feathers against the side of her face. He smells like dust and something electric, something like magic, and she buries her face against him. Her hands grip him hard, fisting his clothes and holding him where he is pressed against her.

     No tears come, but her body does convulse with rough, dry sobs. She knows she probably sounds like she’s dying, but the hurt in her heart doesn’t allow her to stop. She’s shaking in his arms, hiccuping and gasping against the pain in her throat. His hands are warm against her back, rubbing softly, and he is silent throughout her cries.

     After what feels like hours, her sobs cease. Her throat feels raw, her eyes are stinging, and her entire body hurts. She doesn’t pull away from him, though, because he feels like comfort and his arms are the only thing holding her together. She feels like an ill fitting puzzle, with jagged ends sticking out and just threatening to topple back into individual, broken pieces.

     She leans back a few moments later so she can look at him, and he is staring at her with an adoring and sympathetic gaze. He brings his hand up to brush her hair away from her face and out of her eyes, then he leans forward and presses his lips to her forehead. Her eyes close and she sucks in a shaking breath.

     “I love you.” She breathes, because-even though she has said it before-she desperately wants him to know in this moment. He is her only family with her now, and she loves him, _Andraste_ , she loves him so much.

     She feels him nod, and he presses his forehead to hers. His breath is warm against her face, he is everywhere around her. “I love you, too, Hawke.” One of his hands takes hers gently and intertwines their fingers together.

     She hasn’t felt so warm and whole all day. She doesn't feel okay, but she doesn't feel like she is dying, though, and that is a start.

* * *

 

     Varric watches Hawke carefully for the next few days following Leandra’s death.

     He had made himself a mental note that day as he had watched Blondie guide her away that he’d do his best to make her feel better, but he hadn’t seen her the rest of that day. He hadn’t seen her much of the next day, either, or really the next, and he hadn’t been sure what to do. _Once_ , he’d gone to her house, but he couldn’t bring it upon himself to actually knock. She needed to grieve, and Varric was going to give her that time.

     She’d showed up at the Hanged Man to talk to him two days after her mother’s death and, while she’d seemed distant and quiet, she wasn’t too different. He did his best to take her mind off the horrid events that had happened only days earlier-Andraste’s tits, the poor girl-, he offered to buy her drinks when she expressed even the slightest desire for one, and tried to remind her numerous times she could talk to him. It wasn’t easy to watch her like this. She was always so vibrant, snarky and a genuinely funny person. He missed the sound of her laugh.

     She hadn’t been alone when she came, though. Blondie had been with her, a constant presence by her side. He was always touching her in some way, Varric noticed: He had a hand on her elbow, their hands were intertwined, their arms were pressed together when they sat next to each other. Most of the time it was him reaching out to her, but she seemed to appreciate it. Varric could tell from the way her tense shoulders would slump slightly and she’d lean closer to him.

     Sometimes, Hawke would seem to lose her train of thought. Varric would say something, and she’d be looking past him distractedly, her eyes distant and empty. Blondie would brush his fingers subtly-at least, attempting at subtlety- against her arm and murmur something so quietly Varric wouldn’t be able to catch it. It normally snapped Hawke out of her trance, and she’d flash Varric a tiny, apologetic smile and finally reply.

     Varric had already expressed his dislike of the relationship that had bloomed between Blondie and Hawke, but he wondered if maybe he was wrong. Blondie was a healer after all; whatever he was saying to Hawke was definitely helping. She came alive, bit by bit, accepting the sympathetic words from all her friends with a small smile and a thank you, she laughed at Varric’s jokes, and color seemed to return to her eyes. And he could definitely see the affectionate look that Blondie seemed to always be giving her.

     Varric didn’t know when Hawke’s happiness had begun to seem so important to him, but he just knew that, the first time she laughed at something he said after her mother’s death, it was as if the sun had broke through again after a storm.

     He casts Blondie a smile, which was replied to with a confused head tilt. He had to remind himself to somehow thank Blondie for whatever he’d done to help Hawke. Maybe he’d buy him a cat next time they were in Hightown. Daisy had told him that Blondie had a soft spot for cats. It didn’t seem like too bad of an idea, and he thought that maybe

     Hawke would like a cat, too. She’d probably end up complaining about it later, though, when she couldn’t find it around her house.

     He laughs to himself, getting curious looks from the couple sitting across from him. He just shakes his head and took a swig from the drink in front of him, and he is delighted when he heard Hawke’s quiet chuckle join in.

     "How are you?" He asks Hawke later, serious and a little weary about her reaction. Blondie glances at her with pursed lips and then gives Varric a look that obviously says, _Do not upset her_.

     But she doesn't get upset. She gives him a small smile and says, "Better. Truly."

     He can tell she is not _okay_ , but he does believe that she is _better_. And it makes him feel better, too.

     He doesn't miss the way Blondie smiles at her, full of adoration, and he is glad for the first time that Blondie is by Hawke's side.


End file.
